When the king finished, he asked them to forsake Argos and to follow him: he would bring them to a new homeland, to a distant land in the west where the memories of a futile, bloody war could not follow them. To a place where they would meet other women and father other children, where they would build a city destined to become invincible.

‘The world,’ he told them, ‘is very big, much bigger than we can imagine. We will find a place ruled by other gods, where our gods cannot persecute us. I am Diomedes, son of Tydeus, conqueror of Thebes of the Seven Gates and conqueror of Ilium. Together we shall conquer a new kingdom, a hundred times bigger than this one, and we will have plenty of everything we desire. We will drink wine and feast every night to drive away our memories.’

Some of them, the youngest, the strongest and most faithful, went right to his side, swearing to follow him anywhere. Some pleaded to be allowed to join their wives and bring them along. Others, most of them, stood in silence, their heads bowed. And when the king asked them what they intended to do, they answered: ‘Oh lord, we have fought at your side for years without ever sparing our courage. Our chests and our arms bear the scars of many wounds but now, we beseech you, give us our part of the booty and let us go. It is only right that you leave the wife who would betray you, but we are not kings. We want to return to our houses, to reunite with our wives and with the children we left in swaddling when we departed with the other Achaeans to follow the Atreides under the walls of Troy. We want to grow old in peace, to sit in front of our homes in the evenings and watch the sun go down.’

Diomedes entreated them: ‘You mustn’t stay behind! I supplicate you, leave with us. Either all of us should remain or all of us should go. If we stay, I will have to kill the queen and then live the rest of my days persecuted by her Furies, and all together we will have to combat against the Argives, against our own blood. And there will be more bitter mourning and more, infinite pain. If only some of you remain, you will certainly be overwhelmed and slain as soon as they realize that I am not there to defend you and guide you in battle. An evil spirit has taken possession of the palace and of the city. If this were not true, my wife, who adored me, would never have dishonoured my bed and my home. She would never have plotted my death.’

This is what Diomedes said, but his words did not convince them. They had been waiting too long to return to their homeland and their families and now that they had arrived they couldn’t bear the thought of leaving once again.

A slender crescent moon was rising at that moment from the waves of the sea and the stars began to pale. The time had come. The men embraced one another, weeping, as the booty was lowered from the ship, the plunders of war to be divided.

There were bronze tripods and urns, jewels of gold and of silver. Pelts of bears, lions and leopards, finely engraved shells from the sea, helmets, shields and spears. And there were women with high, rounded hips, with black eyes still moist with regret for all they had lost.

The king took very little for himself. He kept the golden armour which had been gifted him by the chief of the Lycians, Glaucus, after they met in battle, and he kept the divine horses he had taken from Aeneas. Only he and Sthenelus knew what was hidden in the hold of the royal ship; the reason why Diomedes could promise his men that the city they would found would be invincible, a kingdom destined to reign over the world.

Diomedes bid his comrades farewell and turned to Sthenelus to give him the orders of departure for the fleet. But Sthenelus turned towards those who had decided to stay, and said: ‘I shall remain here with them. I want to see the sun rising over the sky of Argos. I want to enter through the southern gate, to see the people and the market where we played as children, chasing after one another with little wooden swords. I’ve fought long enough. Not even for you, my friend, could I return to sea and face the weariness, the cold, the solitude.’

Diomedes understood. And although he felt oppressed by immense sorrow, he knew that his friend was not speaking out of fear. He simply could not abandon their remaining comrades to their destiny. He would enter Argos with them and he would die with them. He was the other half of Diomedes, as Patroclus had been the other half of Achilles: and so he had to remain with his men, those who would not take to the sea again.

‘Farewell, my friend,’ said the king to him. ‘When the sun rises high in the sky of Argos and over the palace of Tiryns, look up at it, touch the door jamb for me as well. And if you see Aigialeia. . tell her that. .’

He could not go on. Emotion overcame him and his words died in his throat.

‘I’ll tell her, if I can,’ said Sthenelus. ‘Farewell. Perhaps we’ll meet again one day, but if we don’t, remember that although I’ve decided to remain, I am your friend. Forever.’

And thus the son of Tydeus, Diomedes, left the shores of the land which he had desired so fervently, to face the sea once again.

It was still dark when they weighed anchor but the sky was turning lighter at the horizon. He ordered his comrades to row as fast as they could and to hoist the sail. He wanted to be far off on the water when the sun rose: he couldn’t bear the sight of his beloved land as he was being forced to abandon it and he didn’t want his comrades to suffer for the same reason or to regret having followed him. He donned the golden armour of Glaucus and stood straight at the stern under the royal standard so that all of them could see him and take courage.

When the aurora rose from the east to illuminate the world he was far away: on his right loomed the high rocks of Cape Malea.

He would never know what fate befell the comrades who remained behind. In his heart he hoped that they had been spared and that, with Diomedes gone, the city would no longer have any reason to destroy valiant men, formidable warriors.

But I imagine that a wretched destiny awaited them, no different from the fate of Agamemnon and his comrades when they returned to their homeland. The only word that was ever heard about those men was that Sthenelus had become Aigialeia’s lover. I believe that it was the queen herself who spread this story. Since she could no longer reach Diomedes and kill him herself, she hoped that Rumour — a winged monster with one hundred mouths — could overtake him more rapidly than her ships, shattering his mind and making him die of desperation.

Sthenelus died with his sword in hand, honourably, as he had always lived, toppled from his chariot by the cast of a spear or perhaps pierced through his neck by an arrow. The horses harnessed to his chariot were no longer the divine steeds that Diomedes had taken from Aeneas and he could no longer fly like he had over the plains of Ilium, swifter than the Trojans’ arrows, faster than the wind. A man of no worth, perhaps, tore the armour from his shoulders as he fell, crashing into the dust. And watched as his soul fled, groaning, to the Kingdom of the Dead.

The sun had set and all the paths of land and sea had darkened when Agamemnon’s fleet cast anchor at Nauplia. Victory weighed more heavily upon his shoulders than defeat would have and the gods had chosen for him to behold his homeland under the veil of night as well.

He descended from the ship and breathed in the unforgettable odour of his own land. For a moment that scent rushed to his head like the aroma of a strong wine. But then it swiftly called to mind his daughter Iphigenia, sacrificed on the altar to propitiate their departure for war ten years before, and he realized that all the glory he had won, that the priceless treasure that he was bringing back — the one and only reason that he and his brother Menelaus had set off this war — were not worth the breath of his lost daughter.